How to Find Your Civil War Ancestors

I am writing this to help people find their Civil War ancestors, which is fairly easy on the internet. First you need to know who your ancestors really are and this article may help with that. Just because somebody lived in your home town and has the same name as you doesn't necessarily mean they were your ancestor.

I am a history buff by nature but really got into finding my Civil War ancestors when the movie/book Cold Mountain came out. The character "Inman" is loosely based on W.P. Inman who was the son of one (and brother of one) of my direct ancestors. To read about that click this link. In researching my other Civil War ancestors I found that two of them died in a Union prison camp in Chicago, among other information. Read on for mostly free resources to find your Civil War ancestors. Any Web sites mentioned here will be listed in the sources at the end of the article.

Local Resources for finding your Civil War ancestor

Years before the internet was popular I found out some family and Civil War history at the local library in the county my family was from. The libraries are a big help in finding out about ancestors as many of them have a geology section. Court houses are also a good help in finding out about your Civil War ancestor if they have records dating back that far.

If the county has a museum it could possibly be of help or they may have contacts that can. If the newspaper from the area is very old it could have old issues that may have mentioned Civil War rosters and news, but this may be a long shot. If you can get your hands on old family bibles they often have the record keeping from the family in them.

Web Resources for finding your Civil War ancestor

Ancestory.com is the best family research web site out there. It does cost to join but you can also get a seven day free trial currently. If you go the free trial route in search of your Civil War ancestor then I recommend doing as much of other family history research to take advantage of the site as possible.

The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors site is a pretty good starting point as well. It has information about prisoners, battles and cemeteries to help you in looking for Civil War ancestors. This is a free site.

The National Archives site is also good but it will probably give you lots of stuff to weed through to find what you are looking for. You can search for free but I believe you have to purchase any records you want to have in hand.

Censusdiggins.com has some nice links to Civil War records to aid your search. They also have a couple of prison camp rosters linked from their site.

I hope this article was of help in finding your Civil War ancestors. If you have any questions then please post them in the comments and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Sources

Ancestory.com

CivilWar Soldiers and Sailors

National Archives

Censusdiggins.com